Goals used to be like oxygen for Kilkenny – but they’ve been breathing a little harder over the past couple of years.

While it’s hardly reached crisis proportions just yet, the most worrying aspect to last Sunday’s loss to Waterford was not so much the fact that they failed to raise a green flag, but that they never threatened to.

Pre-dating the Brian Cody era, the Cats always had forwards who didn’t play the percentages. If there was even an outside chance of a goal, they went after it rather than clip over an easy point.

Right now they don’t have that calibre of forward in the same abundance as before, with TJ Reid and Richie Hogan carrying the team on several fronts.

Former Tipperary manager Liam Sheedy touched on the issue on the League Sunday highlights programme after the Waterford game.

Liam Sheedy (Image: Inpho)

“We go back to Kilkenny when they were in their prime,” he said.

“You had Henry Shefflin, you had Eddie Brennan, you had Eoin Larkin, you had Richie Power, and if one of those guys had an off-day, then somebody else just picked it up and took it on.

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“They didn’t even test Ian O’Regan on Sunday, whereas Eoin Murphy always seems to be pulling off two or three great saves at the other end.”

Former Cats goalkeeper David Herity believes the arrival of sweepers in recent seasons has impacted Kilkenny’s ability to carve defences open, but he hopes the return of Ger Aylward, who missed last year through injury, will be a big boost.

“Michael’s impossible to stop when he’s in full flight. He breaks the half-back line. That’s how teams get goals, they can manage to break through the half-back line, have runners either side and they pop the ball off.

“The likes of Colin Fennelly as well, even the three goals that Kilkenny got there last year against Waterford, he scored two of them and he set up Walter Walsh for the other one as well.

“Michael Fennelly only really started to become that powerful runner later on in his career, when he was about 26 in 2011

“If Colin managed to get a year clear of it he could become one of those classy kind of runners and goal-getters. He loves to break tackles, once again, loves hardship and goes straight at the goal.”

Michael Fennelly won’t be back for Sunday’s trip to Ennis, and it’s unlikely the other two will feature either as Kilkenny look for their first points of the campaign.

It's time to reassess goals

Henry Shefflin (Image: Inpho)

From a high of 2.5 goals per game in 2014, Kilkenny's goal ratio has clearly dipped in the last couple of campaigns.

While 2016's strike rate was an improvement on the year before, don't be fooled by the fact that they hit six goals in the League quarter-final win over Offaly, who are currently at their lowest ebb in several decades, to bump up the average for the League and Championship season to 1.73 goals per game.

But take those six goals out of it and the average for 2016 drops to 1.3, a decade-long low with the exception of the 2013 season, when Kilkenny were overcome by injuries and suffered a sharp dip in form before making their earliest Championship exit since 1996.

Although Kilkenny have continued to reach All-Ireland finals despite the goal downturn, the loss of Richie Power, Aidan Fogarty and Henry Shefflin to retirement has clearly had an impact, not to mention the play-making ability of the likes of Tommy Walsh, while Ger Aylward, who contributed three goals in the 2015 Championship, missed last year through injury.

It's hardly a coincidence that the two seasons in which Kilkenny have played most League and Championship games - 2012 and '14 - over the past decade are when they recorded their highest goal averages (2.46 and 2.5 respectively), with the greater number of games presumably allowing them to find more of a penetrative groove up front.